This is a two-part series on the sociological and legal analysis demystifying the ‘gender’ wage gap, so ubiquitous and normalised in all sectors of the economy, that it rarely witnesses the holistic critical engagement it merits to uncover its sociological, cultural and legal aspects beyond the litany of outrageous statistics. We need to look at how voicing of women’s professional ambition almost unequivocally always backfires as obnoxious ‘self-promotion’, even as men scale ladders of success amidst generous acknowledgement for their ‘negotiation skills’ and ‘networking’.
Are ‘chores’ merely useful tasks that must remain unpaid and unintegrated in the economy because they are by nature different from conventional definition of work? Or, trying to point out a difference between work and chores is an exercise in creating a false binary? Read the first ‘Leaflet debate’.
Women’s struggle through history has been to have access to what has been systematically denied to them for centuries. This purpose is defeated if we argue merely that women should work because it benefits the economy. The struggle is about equality, liberty and justice; about claiming what is rightfully theirs.
